October 3, 2012

If the New York Times was constantly searching for archival footage to prove that Mitt Romney doesn't like black people, or that he is "whipping up race hatred," the conservative media would accuse them of frivolously ignoring the actual issues that this election ought to turn on. It would say that they were exploiting the racial anxieties of Americans to tarnish the character of a man whose long record of public policy-making shows no evidence of racial animosity or radicalism.

The whole liberal conceit that Obama is a good, enlightened man, while his opponent is a malign, hard-hearted cretin, depends on constructing a reality where the lives of non-Americans -- along with the lives of some American Muslims and whistleblowers -- just aren't valued. Alternatively, the less savory parts of Obama's tenure can just be repeatedly disappeared from the narrative of his first term, as so many left-leaning journalists, uncomfortable confronting the depths of the man's transgressions, have done over and over again.

He's positioning himself to the left of Obama, but the point is, he's not an Obamaphile, unless he's performing the ministrations of Obamaphilia in a rather subtle fashion.

ADDED: I didn't mean to suggest that I share every detail of Friedersdorf's opinion, only opposition to the exploitation of the old video of him pandering to an audience of black churchgoers. I don't, in fact, agree that Obama has a "long record of public policy-making" that's entirely devoid of "evidence of racial animosity or radicalism." There's some racial animosity and radicalism here and there. He's too far to the left for my taste on many issues (and Romney is too far to the right). He hasn't repressed every shred of racial critique that's ever crossed his mind. That's not a big deal to me. What does bother me is that he hasn't fulfilled the dream that many white people projected onto him — with his fully willing encouragement — that he would take us to a higher ground, racially. But we, the voters, need to take responsibility for our own vulnerability to the idealistic rhetoric that flows so freely from political candidates.

155 comments:

This tape bothers me because it shows a man who ought to know better, LYING.

By January 2007, six months before Obama’s Hampton speech, the federal government had sent at least $110 billion to areas damaged by Katrina. This was more than five times the money that the Bush administration pledged to New York City after 9/11.

The federal government did at times waive the Stafford Act during its New Orleans reconstruction efforts. On May 25, 2007, just weeks before Obama’s speech, the Bush administration sent an additional $6.9 billion to Katrina-affected areas with no strings attached.

"For conservatives, complaining that college administrators do less to accommodate students because they're white is perfectly respectable commentary, and anyone who says otherwise is enforcing political correctness; but a specific critique of disaster relief dollars shortchanging blacks is "whipping up race hatred," and labeling it beyond the pale isn't political correctness run amok at all."

-- Who has ever said that schools aren't doing enough to accommodate whites? Also: Obama was -wrong- about New Orleans being short changed.

I think it is a bit odd that we dug back a few years to show a video that made Obama look bad, but whatever. Again, the point of the video is two-fold:

1) To smack the media

2) To give people a new string of "If a Republican had said it" quotes, since the last set was getting stale.

What Mr. Friedersdorf says about the conservative media is correct. However, what the conservative media says about the likes of The New York Times is equally correct. The question then becomes who is the worse villain.

I'm going to order a copy of the Times' bankruptcy petition when it's eventually filed and have it framed for display in my office, if there's any question about who I think the worse villain is in this case.

Remember, just a few days ago, the media was running a story about how Romney didn't think of garbage men because they were invisible to him -- awkwardly using the exact phrase Romney used to describe how he felt while he was a garbage man for a day to understand what it was like.

The NYT and others don't search for tools to destroy Republican candidates, they just make it up as they go, and don't care who they hurt along the way. See: Iseman, Vicki.

The NYT HAS dug as deep and far as possible to find evidence of racism and everything else on Romney.

This tape though, it shows Obama as a liar- eh threw Wright under the bus during his campaign, and here in this speech he threw AMERICA under the bus to build credibility among blacks- just as the news media and the Dems threw America under the bus on the world stage to make Bush look bad (making sure that every Muslim in the world hates us as a nation, when all they wanted was for them to hate Bush).

Only an idiot liberal can so consistently ignore facts to focus on how they feel about the discovery of the facts, or the "tone" of the messenger.

Though, his comments on Katrina are certainly going to rankle the people who suffered from fires, ice storms and oil spills where his administration dallied on. Are those people not part of the American Family, Mr. President?, should be the next question posed to him at a press conference.

The irony of this is, had Barack Obama been as pale as John Edwards, he would have finished no better than third behind Hillary! and Edwards.

Racial identity is not only central to Obama's identity, it is the only reason he got as far as he did.

Yet, in the end, as the tape proves, Obama exploits race to his end. He prostitutes the only virtue he has (being the first Black president) to serve his very narrow, selfish needs; the "promise" of a "post-racial" America is tossed out like a used condom.

And then, adding another layer of irony, upon criticizing this all-to-obviously over-matched, doomed to fail affirmative action hire, it is conservatives who are labeled as "racists;" not, mind you, to have a discussion about race in America, but to shut down dissent.

Friedersdorf is full of shit; and if you believe he is correct, then so to are you Althouse.

What Mr. Friedersdorf says about the conservative media is correct. However, what the conservative media says about the likes of The New York Times is equally correct. The question then becomes who is the worse villain.

No it isn't - the question is "who can you trust?"

Dancing with the lesser of two evils still leaves you dealing with evil - and open to being screwed.

Seriously Ann? Mitt Romney isn't claiming to be a post-racialist who will bring America together. Romney didn't throw his long-term reverend under the bus when the views espoused by said reverend came to light. I could go on.

The video is further proof that Obama will happily stroke racial tensions. That he continued to publicly proclaim a close, familial relationship with his pastor.

...

We have a President built upon Persona. The Persona was built by a campaign. All evidence from outside of that campaign is that the Persona is largely false. He's not a constitutional scholar, he's not a consensus builder, he will use racial speeches to promote distruct of african-americans towards the U.S. government when it suits him...

And, as you've pointed out, the overwhelmingly liberal media has no desire to dig into Obama's recent past to breakthrough his persona. They won't dig into Biden. They won't analyze what it means to put Samantha Power, Susan Rice, and Valerie Jarrett within close earshot....

So what, exactly, is wrong with raising this video showing exactly who Obama was 1 year before he was elected president?

If Romney didn't like black people and was "whipping up race hatred", I'd like to know about it. Friedersdorf's argument seems to based on the idea that evident, if inconvenient, facts should be kept hidden. Searches for the ghosts of departed dog whistles is one thing, letting plain statements speak for themselves is another.

I'm still wondering how a video of a President saying the government doesn't want to take care of New Orleans post Katrina (which is a lie by the way) is "racist" or in any coherent way demonstrates racism by those wishing to expose the video.

It would say that they were exploiting the racial anxieties of Americans to tarnish the character of a man whose long record of public policy-making shows no evidence of racial animosity or radicalism.

"Long record?" The man has no record at all, short of voting "present" when the tough issues came up.

The man presented himself as a "post racial" president, and was presented by others as a racial healer. It is not racist to show that those presentations are false. It is not "exploiting racial anxieties" to refute a claim that Pres. Obama brought up in the first place. You, Prof. Althouse have said that your hope in what he could do for race in America was one of the reasons you voted for him. Why shouldn't the right attempt to convince you that those hopes were premised upon false suppositions?

Whether it is effective is certainly another question. I doubt it is. But to claim that such arguments are out of bounds, as you are when you say they serve to exploit "racial anxieties" is ...bullshit.

Mr. Friedersdorf is accusing Republicans/conservatives of projection - of accusing Democrats/liberals of playing the race card when it is the conservatives who are doing so. What he ignores (and what I think Ann is either ignoring, downplaying, or dismissing) is that Democrats/liberals don't have to look for tapes of Romney being racist because they *know* that he is. If PB&J is racist, then all white people are definitely racist. Overtly stoking racial (or sexual) animus is how the Democrats maintain their coalition, but when they are called out on it, the messenger is shot (with the racism bullet).

Jay: I think calling it Obama's "other race speech" set the tone. I wouldn't have tried to gussy the video up and just released it and let it speak for itself. But, my instincts are toward opinion-free journalism, and the Daily Caller and Drudge have more activist journalist bents than I do.

Besides, I think Drudge even said that accusations of racism would fly from all directions. So, you know, it was baked into the cake.

What does it take to make five-year-old remarks the biggest story of the moment in conservative media? A racial angle. That's all it ever takes.

For conservatives, complaining that college administrators do less to accommodate students because they're white is perfectly respectable commentary, and anyone who says otherwise is enforcing political correctness; but a specific critique of disaster relief dollars shortchanging blacks is "whipping up race hatred," and labeling it beyond the pale isn't political correctness run amok at all.

Friedersdorf, author, seems to have realized he was out on a limb in that second quote. He combined about five ideas and three sentences into one inscrutable souffle.

This writing, these ideas, are childish. Boogey-man stuff. You subscribe to this?

The clear difference is that the leftist media were searching for events that had to be interpreted beyond their meaning to claim Romney was race baiting. In summary, there was no actual race baiting by Romney.

On the other hand Barack Obama is race baiting - supported by lies - in front of your very eyes. But you claim these series of events are the same? Bizarre.

"Althouse Hillbillies=commenters at this blog who suffer from poverty of the mind and who go into gnarly hysteria when baited by their master Althouse, usually with racial red meat."

-- You do know Althouse was of the opinion that the Obama phones video (which I've never bothered to watch so I have no opinion) was racist (or at least, being exploited in a racist way? I don't really know. I saw the comment number and didn't bother with the thread.)

I think it might be good to pause and get a better read on Althouse (and the commentators) before continuing on this line of reasoning.

Seriously Ann? Mitt Romney isn't claiming to be a post-racialist who will bring America together. Romney didn't throw his long-term reverend under the bus when the views espoused by said reverend came to light. I could go on.

Two things:

1) Nobody's rejecting Romney for the sins of his "church."

2) Ann left out that Friedersdorf also did a column saying he can't vote for Romney either.

"Ok, so I guess in liberal land the use of the term "race" means (dogwhistle!) we're accusing Obama of racism."

-- I think it is more the tone, than anything else. I didn't watch the Hannity segment, but I could see people being offput by the Daily Caller's piece. Again, I don't agree that the video is racist (or that running with it is), just that I think the well was poisoned a bit by the lead up, which made it a fight not over the facts in there (I, for one, think when Obama says the administration [Bush, at the time] didn't do enough for AIDS alone should have been a gaffe at the time that was reported).

Except the "critique" is a hysterical lie, demonstrates an ignorance of what the Federal Government's role is in a disaster, and completely ignores the fact that a black mayor hid out in a hotel and a white Gov revealed herself to be incompetent & clueless during the whole thing.

"Before you reflexively reject Friedersdorf's opinion — which I share..."

What a steaming pile. The lefty media has called Romney and Ryan over and over and over for fucking racism that IMAGINED...Obama's golfing...RACISM BECAUSE HE'S LIKE TIGER WOODS...his Chicago roots...RACISM BECAUSE CHICAGO HAS BLACK PEOPLE...on and on and on and on.

But yo uhave Obama in his own words making lies and tha's the equalizer?

"It would say that they were exploiting the racial anxieties of Americans to tarnish the character of a man whose long record of public policy-making shows no evidence of racial animosity or radicalism."

But Obama's record does show evidence of racial animosity and radicalism. How is it exploitative to note that the President, when the opportunity arises, sounds an awful lot like a pandering race-baiter?

And did the author sleep through the whole "47%" controversy? A relatively straightforward statement that did not even mention or imply race was used, quite casually, to accuse Romney of racism.

Matthew, Althouse is now embarrassed she attracted all of these lazy Althouse Hillbillies to her porch. So she is now trying to distance herself from these embarrassments. Also she gets off on making her Althouse Hillbillies jump.

Agree with the broad point Ann is making, which is that Republicans highlighting instances where Obama appears to pander on racial grounds is self-defeating. Almost anyone who is stirred up by such examples is already anti-Obama. The undecided are just as likely to be turned off.

A far better strategy is to focus on Obama's manifest failure as a leader.

Friedersdorf's basic point is undermined by the fact that the Left has been doing everything in their power to find archival footage of Romney's racial demagoguery, much as they have attempted to do with every Republican candidate in my memory.

The Republican's attempts are actually an adoption of Democratic methods. You may not like it, but to hold them accountable for something while giving their opponents carte blanche to do the same thing seems to me to be wrong. His (your?) attitude seems to be that it's okay for Dem's to do this because they're terrible people, but Republican's are supposed to be better people so when they engage in Democrat tactics, it somehow makes them worse than when Democrats do it.

And I don't give someone credit for being critical of Obama from the left. "Wah! He's not destroying the country fast enough for me! Wah!"

"It’s hard to imagine that the powerful in our society would tolerate the burgeoning prison industrial complex if they imagined that the black men and Latino men that are being imprisoned were something like their sons. "

And of course:

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but rich people are all for nonviolence. Why wouldn’t they be? They’ve got what they want. They want to make sure people don’t take their stuff. But the principle of empathy recognizes that there are more subtle forms of violence to which we are answerable. The spirit of empathy condemns not only the use of firehoses and attack dogs to keep people down but also accountants and tax loopholes to keep people down. I’m not saying that what Enron executives did to their employees is the moral equivalent of what Bull Connor did to black folks, but I’ll tell you what, the employees at Enron feel violated. When a company town sees its plant closing because some distant executives made some decision despite the wage concessions, despite the tax breaks, and they see their entire economy collapsing, they feel violence

"It’s hard to imagine that the powerful in our society would tolerate the burgeoning prison industrial complex if they imagined that the black men and Latino men that are being imprisoned were something like their sons. "

”Illinois, like many states in the country, has an education system that is funded by property taxes. It is fundamentally unjust. So you have folks up in Winnetka, pupils who are getting five times as much money per student as students in the South Side of Chicago.

Our hostess' response to this episode is to shift attention from the content of the video to the fact that Republicans have introduced it into the discussion. The effect is a high-class BenSmithing. In the poll thread, commenter AJ Lynch said

"You, on the other hand, Althouse are a bit of a pussy with your lack of opinion or reaction to what you saw on the tapes. Analyze it with some passion - tell us is this what you want a president to say to special interest groups. Was Obama validating what Romney said -that many people like to act like victims. Hell, Obama said they were victims of the fed govt and white privilege."

Ann never answers this, and her reaction to the content of the Obama video remains unknown to her readers. It is unpleasant to say so, but I fear it may be simply that it is OK for Obama to go street with that audience, because he is a black person. This smells of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

So a video showing candidate Obama participating in racial pandering and forwarding an ignorant, vile slander about the Federal Government's response to Katrina, is somehow an indication of the Right's racism.

That little phrase is the problem. It turns out to refer, in this instance, to Drudge, Daily Caller and Hannity.

Despite all the marketing hoopla yesterday, the speech wasn't different, except perhaps in tone, from what Obama has said many times elsewhere. As for 'racial demagoguery', you're more likely to find that if the subject is voter ID laws or affirmative action. The latter was, of course, a major theme (if more often in the subtext) of Obama's 2007 speech. The very premise of that discussion is a policy of dividing people into racial classes, each to be accorded different treatment, a premise that CJ Roberts has rightly called a "sordid business."

Does anyone even care if some white liberal cries racism any more. I mean, the only place they live are white bastions of liberalism. So if a tree falls in a forest...

Have any of these defernders of diversity ever spent a night in South Chicago, or South Philly, etc...I have, and I can tell you racism is alive and doing very well in those places.

I've decided to tell anyone else about MY racism, and how I think to fuck the hell off.

So to the OP. FUCK OFF!

I yesterday opined about the video and how it was more damning to the media than to Zero. I just think Mr. Smallballs is trying to cover his own ass. He knows that the media has been exposed(nasty sight) for the lying sycophants that they are, and America has no further use for their useless asses.(well Andy might. Take a cold one Andy)

There is a substantial part of the right who has been persuaded that the right has unilaterally disarmed: that unfair attacks from the left are not discredited by left-leaning media, while unfair attacks from the right have not been made because the right puts a high value on playing fair.

This isn't the only thing that differentiates establishment Republicans from non-establishment Republicans, but Brietbart and the tea-party and (I guess) talk radio have all been on the side of "Oh you want to play rough? We can play rough."

Zero has 983 executive orders vs 63 for Bush in less than half the time in power. That's WITH control of both Houses for 2 years. That's protofascism.

Every postmenopausal broad I know is in the tank for the Big Zero. It's as if they've nurtured every perceived slight, every faint insult over the last 40 years and now it's payback time to every ex-husband, disappointing son and indifferent father. It's not because Zero is the taboo fantasy gone unfulfilled in their brief youth. It's because Zero fulfills some masochistic need to adore the golden hero. One who looks nothing like all those venal corrupt, and above all crushingly disappointing men in their lives.

Ann is wrong to agree with Friedersdorf and wrong not to point out that Katrina victims had already received over $100 billion to rebuild when the ignorant demagogue---who happens to be half-black---began his inflammatory rant at Hampton, an all-black university.

If any white, Hispanic, or Asian-American had done the same thing in front of an audience of his/her fellow ethnic and racial peers, the mainstream media would have killed the campaign within a week. Obama is---as the LATimes liberal columnist put it so well---the Magic Negro. He is lifted up by the media---including the "celebrity news" media that most Americans know and watch more than the lame legacy alphabet networks---and levitates magically above his dismal record on the economy, etc.... He will do much more damage to the this country if he is elected to a second term---period.

"Ann is wrong to agree with Friedersdorf and wrong not to point out that Katrina victims had already received over $100 billion to rebuild when the ignorant demagogue---who happens to be half-black---began his inflammatory rant at Hampton, an all-black university."

One should really differentiate between Katrina victims from New Orleans and those from the Mississipp gulf coast. I'm pretty sure Barry wasn't talking about the latter group.

The thing about Obama is, he occasionally plays the Black racist, but it's fake. He's pandering to Black racists in his audience (and occasionally to self-hating Whites) -- there's no reason to think he believes his own race-baiting any more than he believes his campaign speeches.

Ann is confortable only after putting up a false -middle of the road- front, and then falling back on projecting her misguided world view -who are the real racists- on the right. Can't seem to find it in herself to apply the same standards to both sides.

So, althouse, are there ANY legitimate criticisms a republican can make of a democrat without it somehow being shadowy racism? Or are republicans restrained to marquis of queens bury rules while democrats are allowed to shiv people in the back with a knife, and if a republican fights back at all they risk losing your "support"?

There are two sentences in the middle of Friedersdorf's screed that bother me immensely. The first is

These conservatives don't care that President Obama's actual record on racial matters is anything but radical.

@Althouse, when you added "I don't, in fact, agree that Obama has a 'long record of public policy-making" that's entirely devoid of "evidence of racial animosity or radicalism.'" I was a little relieved at the evidence of your sanity. But then in the next sentence you wrote "There's some racial animosity and radicalism here and there," I got upset all over again.

Under Eric Holder's administration the Department of Justice has adopted as its official policy that African-Americans cannot ever be guilty of hate crimes and racial discrimination. In effect, this administration has turned the notion of equal justice before the law into the notion that certain groups are legally privileged due to the injustices of a half century ago. Perhaps this notion is mainstream in the faculty lounges of this country's law schools, but those of us who have to live in the real world think that this is very, very wrong.

Then Friedersdorf's very next sentence is

Nor do they care that his reelection poses zero threat to white people as a class.

The threat is not to white people "as a class," whatever that is supposed to mean. But his reelection is a serious threat to people who want a better life available to our children then we had.

The Right is supposed to be different - better. To play the Left's game just proves that's a lie, so what do you expect?

@Crack, devout Christians are supposed to turn the cheek. But where in the Bible does it suggest that they keep on turning. After a while it's time to get down in the gutter with the riff-raff scum and make them sorry they ever started something.

@Carnifex, I know precisely what you mean. I sent my children to "majority minority" public schools while the liberals of my acquaintance sent theirs to private schools or sold their houses to move into white neighborhoods with negligible minority enrollment in the local schools.

I have relatives who were driven out of South Chicago by Blacks -- and I don't mean that they got frightened and left despite efforts of their new neighbors to live in peace with them. I mean their houses and yards were vandalized despite their own efforts to live in peace with the new neighbors. There was a deliberate policy to drive the honkeys out and they left.

And I've personally spent many nights in North Philly. I've felt the waves of hatred wash over me simply because of my skin color.

I had hoped that I was wrong in 2008 and that Obama really would try to bring peace between the races. From where I sit he has done precisely the opposite. He has to go if we're ever going to fix things.

Althouse Update:"What does bother me is that he hasn't fulfilled the dream that many white people projected onto him — with his fully willing encouragement — that he would take us to a higher ground, racially. But we, the voters, need to take responsibility for our own vulnerability to the idealistic rhetoric that flows so freely from political candidates."

Congratulations. You have just discovered that selling Obama as Mr. Racial Healer Man was really snake oil with a bit of menthol. Who knew?

What do you mean "we"? It's the ones who were so prepared to swallow the elixir when given the opportunity that need to "take responsibility for your own vulnerability." I reject that this vulnerability is caused by vaginas, though I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

From my perspective, i.e. not introspective, this is the rubes self-identifying.

So, telling the truth about Obama being a racist is wrong? That's pretty stupid even for you.

What? You don't think this is old news, at best? THAT's the charade you guys are trying to pass off. And where are you truth-tellers on Romney's problems? THAT'S "new" news - but you have no obsession to relay those, correct? Why?

Unhappy with the lack of attention paid to his embarrassingly stupid "Althouse hillbillies" trolling routine and his racial slur against a black commenter ("pretend negro"), and eager to seed the comments section with "evidence" that this blog is full of "racist wing-nuts", Jay Retread logs out of his "Jay Retread" account and logs in to his "Right is right!" Moby account and posts more tiresomely stupid shit.

What? You don't think this is old news, at best? THAT's the charade you guys are trying to pass off. And where are you truth-tellers on Romney's problems? THAT'S "new" news - but you have no obsession to relay those, correct? Why?

It's not old news. We need to be re -reminded of these things often so that we don't become complacent with them. Its good to have North Korea around so we can be reminded of the evils of socialism.

It's good to see how fake Obama really is so that we can be reminded that everything he says is more on the fake side than not.

@Crack, devout Christians are supposed to turn the cheek. But where in the Bible does it suggest that they keep on turning. After a while it's time to get down in the gutter with the riff-raff scum and make them sorry they ever started something.

Unhappy with the lack of attention paid to his embarrassingly stupid "Althouse hillbillies" trolling routine and his racial slur against a black commenter ("pretend negro"), and eager to seed the comments section with "evidence" that this blog is full of "racist wing-nuts", Jay Retread logs out of his "Jay Retread" account and logs in to his "Right is right!" Moby account and posts more tiresomely stupid shit.

Every fair person would agree that black people have a right to their grudges. History is what it is. But I think everyone would also agree that, beyond a certain point, rancor is unjustified and self defeating. The anger of the Black Panthers and Nation of Islam is more likely to perpetuate racism than overcome it.....Obama said some factually incorrect things in order to heighten his audience's sense of grievance. That doesn't make him Minister Farrakhan, but it doesn't make him a racial healer either.....There was a New Orleans congressman who diverted an emergency vehicle during the flooding in order to go to his home to pick up his bribe money. To ignore such outrages while manufacturing others is just wrong.......In the 19th century, well bred women liked to pretend that they had transcended base sexual feelings. Oh, sure. In our era, well bred women like to pretend that they have transcended all feelings of racial animus. Oh. sure. Althouse has not achieved transcendence but perversion.

I'm sorry Crack, was the officiant of Romney's wedding controversial? Did Romney spend 15+ years listening to controversial sermons by this pastor with statements such as,

1. We brought 9/11 on ourselves2. "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color."

...

Now, if Romney's pastor/reverend were making statements of a similar nature, and Romney had named a book after one of his sermons, had him officiate his wedding, and spent over 1.5 decades listening to him and praising him in various speeches...

For me, my eyes have been opened by the althouse two-step. Sins of the left are presented bloodlessly but at least acknowledged. Sins of the right are presented In an emotionally personalized fashion. Sins of the left are acknowledged but leave no lasting mark. Sins of the right are magnified and internalized. This passes for evenhandedness and moderation; but only if ignore Althouse's own words as to which side's actions actually affect her.

Its a sham and I'm done. I'm glad Palladian is back, but as for me, I think I'll just go back to reading this blog rather than actively commenting.

I could certainly get on board with the idea that Obama is entitled to believe or even say whatever he likes so long as he doesn't try to turn it into public policy-- but only if the rest of us get cut that same amount of slack. No sign of that yet, certainly not around here.

I'm sorry Crack, was the officiant of Romney's wedding controversial? Did Romney spend 15+ years listening to controversial sermons by this pastor with statements such as,

1. We brought 9/11 on ourselves2. "The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color."

...

Now, if Romney's pastor/reverend were making statements of a similar nature, and Romney had named a book after one of his sermons, had him officiate his wedding, and spent over 1.5 decades listening to him and praising him in various speeches...

yeah, then I'd expect such a thing to be scandalous.

Why does it have to be an apples/apples - oranges/oranges comparison? Why can't it be "these guys did this dirty shit, and these guys - because they're different people with a different outlook from a different part of the country - did this dirty shit"? I'll tell you:

Because you have no interest in the truth.

None of you are interested in serving the interest of the truth, or the country, or our politics even:

Has anyone noted that Crack,like all black people, identifies himself as black first?

Bullshit. 98% of Crack's comments do no such thing. And WTF do you mean "like all black people?" How many black Americans do you know? "All?" Hey, put up a Blogger "profile" with a photo, you know, the one with the white pointy hood.

How many other non-central European Americans do you know? How many "black," "tan" or "brown" folk live near by you, and how many do you associate with frequently?

I don't like Obama's race pandering, and I like your kind even less...however, both are essentially the same thing, you and Obama have a lot in common.

When Obama spoke of little or no federal response to Katrin in New Orleans, he was full of shit. Not guessing, I know, I was fucking there. Our teams arrived 2 days before land fall....white and black alike...and were still there when Obama gave that lying bitch ass speech.

So, you give him a hand up in his race bullshit with your race bullshit. Maybe he'll give you a job as poster boy for that part of the campaign.

You are projecting man. You don't even name the "truth" you are referring too - just producing a blanket statement.

I'm tired of politicians. I'm tired of big problems being kicked down the road and made worse in the process.

I want a basic social safety net that provides emergency medical services, prevents hunger, and prevents homelessness short of psychological issue or continuous terrible decision making.

After that, I want the federal government sticking to things it needs to: trade, foreign relations, national projects, defense,etc.

So you can see, Obama's policies do not work for me. I could still like him if he was a unifier. If he acted presidential. If his first instinct was to defend the U.S. - for example, if he said, "I don't agree with that video but I'll defend to the death the right for someone to say those offensive things."

Republicans, as a whole, don't interest me either. But there are some exceptions. There are some principled folk. Ryan is one of them; there's a few others.

I look to people's actions to determine "the truth". What do you look at?

So, telling the truth about Obama being a racist is wrong? That's pretty stupid even for you.

What? You don't think this is old news, at best? THAT's the charade you guys are trying to pass off. And where are you truth-tellers on Romney's problems? THAT'S "new" news - but you have no obsession to relay those, correct? Why?

Because you're now practiced liars.

It isn't my job to point out Romney's shortcomings as a candidate. That's Obama's problem. It's stupid to think that Republicans should go around trashing their own candidate, joining the Democrats and the Press (but I repeat myself).

This video is "old news" only in the fact that it's from 2007. The Press was there and deemed it "not newsworthy" because they didn't want the message about an up and coming Democrat to get out. I guarantee you that this is the first time almost anyone has seen the complete video.

TreeJoe What do you mean by 'principled folk'? It seems to me that when people say that what they really mean to say is they like someone who thinks like they do.

If you truly like principled folk then you would have to like right wing dictators and communist dictators as well. The key is what principle.

I personally do not see Ryan more principled than Obama. Although he is probably more principled than Romney. However when one runs for president one tends to stretch themselves any which way to win. Anyone too principled would probably not win or even get nominated. But the appearance of being principled! Now, there's something. That could work... and has.

I don't think Conor is being fair. The point of addressing Obama's race baiting is to join the left's monologue concerning issues of race. That seems to be all the left cares about, considering all statements by Republicans are critiqued racially. Skinny is "code" for black, etc. Obama is scrutinized more rigorously because he's black, etc. The left finds it unacceptable to talk about issues of substance, like Obama's reneged promises, his cronyism, fast and furious, targeted assassinations, vastly expanded electronic surveillance, etc. These issues are entirely ignored by the left, when it was all the rage during the Bush years. So what's a chatterbox conservative to do when nothing he says is considered by the left? Talk about what they're talking about, of course. Race! That's the ticket. But, oh no, it's being ignored again. Hey guys. Aren't you watching? Obama is being egregiously racist. He's affecting a phony accent and raising racial animosity against white people. Isn't this the in-thing? Isn't this what causes you all to lather in seething disgust when you think such things are found in the subtext of conservative speech? Why the sudden lack of interest? Ok, fine. What do you want to talk about?

You can see why this is frustrating. Our national dialogue is entirely ungratifying. At least during the Bush years there was a dirty, malicious, unscrupulous back-and-forth between two sides that hated each other. Now it's just one insular side rolling their eyes about the other.

If the New York Times was constantly searching for archival footage to prove that Mitt Romney doesn't like black people, or that he is "whipping up race hatred," the conservative media would accuse them of frivolously ignoring the actual issues that this election ought to turn on.

Washington Post published a false story about him bullying a presumed gay kid when Mitt was in high school.

Just noting that the press has done far worse...

What does it take to make five-year-old remarks the biggest story of the moment in conservative media? A racial angle. That's all it ever takes.

I should, again, note that the press used a FIFTY-YEAR OLD EVENT --- that likely never happened --- to paint Romney as anti-gay.

And for any faults he has, Crack does not play the race card to any appreciable degree. His anti-Mormon crusade is a bit tiresome, but he isn't playing martyr.

You are projecting man. You don't even name the "truth" you are referring too - just producing a blanket statement.

Something objective Americans can judge accordingly:

For instance, to harp on Reverend Wright - when Romney said that Obama would make this a less Christian nation - while insisting the Mormon church's BS is off-limits is disingenuous at best.

Romney said that on Hannity's show, too, BTW.

Why not admit they're all playing us? That would be the truth. That would be a help. That would be a patriot looking out for the country.

Or flip it around:

To harp on Romney's Bain Capital, or Salt Lake Olympics fiascos - but leave out Obama's financial connections to Bill Ayers - is just as wrong.

In their partisan zeal, no one is interested in exposing anything close to an accurate picture of what Americans should know about these two men (and, maybe more importantly, their associates) they so fervently want to lead this nation.

Each presents one side of a badly warped picture, claiming it's "the truth."

Of course, the media is the worst offender here - this is supposed to be their job - but, right now, it's the blogosphere that's pissed me off the most because the claim was they were going to be answer to this very problem.

The Press was there and deemed it "not newsworthy" because they didn't want the message about an up and coming Democrat to get out.

Hey, Romney revealed he doesn't understand one lick about science to The Washington Examiner - a conservative paper - should we just say The Press was there and deemed it "not newsworthy" because they didn't want the message about an up and coming Republican to get out?

Aren't they, too, just as guilty - and is that your idea of serving the national interest?

I guarantee you that this is the first time almost anyone has seen the complete video.

If there WAS archival footage that showed Mitt Romney whipping up raical hatred or lying about what the government did to eff over white people...

...I think that the NYT should be showing it!

What is it about this that I'm missing?

Where is the double standard? We heard all about the racist rock and Perry even though he had nothing to do with it and his family painted it over. A Republican can destroy his entire career by the foolish uttering of a single word that someone sees as racist.

If there was archival footage of Romney that was *homeopathic* white supremist, we'd see it all day long. If Ryan wore black face for a high school play because the play had a black character he would have to work in the private sector.

Explain the double standard to me.

Yes, conservatives complain about the made up stuff like the racist rock, but this premise that we *wouldn't* want to know if there was archival footage of Romney being a racist jack ass assumes some pretty vile things about conservatives.

And figure, if the assumption demands that nature of conservatives who supposedly "don't want to know", what does the equivalent say about liberals?

It's exploitative to show a video of St. Barry the Bountiful exploiting black people. A video that was suppressed by the Palace Guard media (they were all there) because it makes their candidate look bad. It's all the fault of the right. Waah. (Wait, what?)

Bullshit to all of this. To the article's frail thesis that the right should not expose the left's racial hypocrisy and demagoguery, to Althouse for continuing to maintain that Obama's racial grievance mongering is a minor thing (CWJ, above, is right), and to Crack Emcee's vague rules about what is appropriate for the right.

Obama's fully paid up and ongoing enthusiastic membership in the church of black liberation theology is old news, IF you've been paying attention. Meanwhile I doubt anyone with a pulse and a brain cell is unaware that Romney is a Mormon. (The brain cell requirement excludes the idiots found by Howard Stern and their like.) A lot of people already know that Mormons have some very odd religious beliefs, but most people do not know the racism and hypocrisy inherent in black "christian" theology and how it affects the governing principle on the left. That is fair game. Especially coming straight from Obama himself, the same guy who told us he rejected Rev. Wright, but only when his grotesque racism was inconveniently publicized.

The article argues that the right should not publicize the left's hypocrisy on race because the right does not like it when the left publicizes its hypocrisy. Except there is all the evidence in the world that the left's publicity machine, the Palace Guard, lies all the time, covers up, distorts, suppresses, excerpts selectively as a matter of course. The left's "exposure" of the hypocrisy of the right these days consists of lying all the time. That's the other half of the relevancy of this video, that it was suppressed by the media. It does not matter whether the author of the article disapproves of Obama and says he won't vote for him; he's still working for and protecting the left.

"The right is supposed to be different, better." It is, if you prefer smaller, efficient, constitutional government. You do have to understand that this will never be perfectly realized, there will never be the perfect candidate. Apparently Paul Ryan isn't even good enough for you. You live in a state of perpetual outrage. "There's a line that's not supposed to be crossed." What. The. Fuck? Vague bullshit rules that will guarantee defeat, permanently, of the principle of smaller, efficient, constitutional government. Yes, let's give the Obama cult free rein for another four years rather than vote for a Mormon. That's rational thinking.

"When a company town sees its plant closing because some distant executives made some decision despite the wage concessions, despite the tax breaks, and they see their entire economy collapsing, they feel violence,”